


Unknown Respect

by Confusedeitherway



Series: I've Grown With You [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Mama Stark, Men Raised By Women
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 18:36:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/903521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Confusedeitherway/pseuds/Confusedeitherway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve puts some things in context.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unknown Respect

**Author's Note:**

> This is a quick headcanon I have about ways for Steve to understand the Stark men he's met in his life.

When Steve first sits down and thinks about his time in the War, it’s on a slow day months after Loki’s attempted takeover. He and Tony still rub each other the wrong way now and then; they’re getting somewhere, slowly. It mostly has to do with living within three floors of the rest of the team. Clint and Natasha are gone more often than not, and Thor splits his time between Asgard the tower and New Mexico; but Bruce stays and plays mediator. 

Most of what he knew (And god doesn’t that hurt; using the past tense for everything he holds dear. It’s an old wound and it still aches.) about the Howling Commando is a combination of the things you learn about old friends (favorite foods, how they got this scar) and what you’re forced to learn about the people whose lives you’re being entrusted with (blood type, their address to ship back what remains… Just in case, Captain. Please). All he still knows about Howard comes from the handful of times they talked and whatever people quietly tell him after he makes a mistake with Tony.

Howard was raised primarily by his mother; a woman who gave her son a chance to spend his summers in Europe and his free time with Scientists in California. Pepper says something about her being ‘exotic by the standards in her time’ but doesn’t really elaborate. Steve doesn’t understand how she did it, but can appreciate the effort it must have taken. Howard wasn’t easy. The man that Steve met was a great guy, but a mean drunk with not even a touch of homesickness, a personality and a mind too big for his lithe build and the needs of an average human body. He sees the same in Tony but knows better than to mention it by now, knowing it will lead to another three day long spell of no one but Bruce wandering around with his eyes glued to data. Tony was much closer to his mother, anyway. He says as much when he finally starts warming up to Steve enough to offer apologies in the form of armor upgrades and bits of what can be considered Howard’s better days (it kills him, a little, to know those days were so few and far between).

It occurs to him that the same forwardness, near inability to back down and that inner strength found in the two Starks he’s known he can see in himself. Of course, it makes sense. He, Tony, and Howard were raised by women; those qualities are needed in extra measures when your raise a child by yourself (or in Maria’s case, with only enough input to rank above total neglect and with the help of a mother-in-law born in the previous century).


End file.
